CABARET DIVA IN WEST END DEBUT

Posted on Mar 17, 2011 | By London Theatre Direct

Meow Meow (no fixed address) has been named one of the top performers of 2010 by The New Yorker, Top 10 Best of Cabaret by Time Out New York, ‘cabaret diva of the highest order’ by The New York Post, ‘sensational’ by The Times and ‘a phenomenon’ by the Australian press – the ‘post-post-modern diva’ Meow Meow has wowed audiences globally with her unique brand of ‘kamikaze cabaret’ and performance art exotica.

With an extraordinary voice described as ‘Diamanda Galas drowned in cherry liqueur’, the spectacular crowd-surfing queen of song ‘drags cabaret kicking and screaming into the 21st century’ (Time Out NY), with trail-blazing sell-out seasons from New York and Berlin to London’s Soho Theatre and Sydney Opera House.
Multi-award-winning Meow’s solo programmes have been curated by David Bowie, Pina Bausch and Baryshnikov, amongst others, for their European and USA festivals, and Sydney Opera House recently commissioned her original music theatre work Vamp (with composer Iain Grandage). In New York she has performed at Lincoln Center, the Carnegie Hall-curated Berlin in Lights series at Neue Galerie, and regularly at Joe’s Pub. Most recently, she performed with Opera Australia, and with the Australian National Academy of Music in Wunderschön, Reinbert de Leeuw and the Schönberg Ensemble’s reworking of Schubert and Schumann Lieder. In collaborations she has toured the USA with the Dresden Dolls, recorded the album Here Kitty Kitty… The Lost Sessions with Pink Martini’s Thomas M Lauderdale (due for release in 2011) and is a frequent guest in La Clique and La Soirée globally.

Meow Meow was awarded the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize in 2010 for her show Feline Intimate.

Now she is making her West End debut in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg alongside theatre star Joanna Riding, winner of two Laurence Olivier awards for Carousel and My Fair Lady.

Joanna most recently played Mrs. Wilkinson in Billy Elliot in the West End. Her other London stage credits include The Witches of Eastwick, Blithe Spirit, An Ideal Husband, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, as well as Me and My Girl, Guys and Dolls, A Little Night Music and Oh What a Lovely War.

Joanna Riding takes on the role of Madame Emery and Meow Meow is Lola.
Twenty year old French auto mechanic Guy Fouchier has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève vow to remain lovers. After discovering she is carrying Guy’s child she must choose between waiting for his return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.

The critically acclaimed classic film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, directed by Jacques Demy, was released in 1964 starring a 19 year old Catherine Deneuve. The film went on to be nominated for five Academy Awards and then won the 1964 Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival. The Academy Award nominated I Will Wait for You, one of the songs featured in the film, has subsequently been recorded by many artists including Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Tony Bennett and Liza Minnelli.
With preview performances from 5th March and official opening night on 22nd March, buy reduced Umbrella of Cherbourg tickets online now.

[posted by Louise 17/03/20111]